


Idle Strangers

by agdhani



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 05:38:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agdhani/pseuds/agdhani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's homecoming is not what he expected it to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Idle Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU spin, based entirely upon this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se73hlY-haA by DoctorDoggmatic. There are no Season 3 spoilers, since it was created entirely before the airing of S3 Ep1. The name is taken from the song used for the video, Idle Stranger by Miccoli.  
> Thanks to DoctorDoggmatic for making such an amazing video and prompting me to write this. I hope I've done the video justice in the storytelling.

It was time.  There had been reasons, too many reasons, to go, but none of them felt like reason enough any longer.  He had been away long enough.  Too long.  There were things back home he needed to do.  People…someone…he needed to see.

The plane loomed closer.  Men, Mycroft’s men, sat in the front of the typically black car, silent men, as Sherlock preferred.  He pulled the ticket from his pocket and read the words once again.  He hadn’t missed anything of course, had memorized ever word, every code, every color and texture on the slip of heavy paper.  But it was the only tangible proof he had that what he was doing was real.  That it was happening.  He had no bags, no luggage to remind him.  He had b nothing with him then; there had been no time.  All he had taken with him that day except memories, and memories was all he was bringing back with him now.

The heavy memory of the last time he had seen him, the broken man at the graveside.  ‘So alone…owe you so much…’  How, he wondered.  How could you owe me anything more than what Sherlock felt he owed John Watson was so much more?  No one had been more alone, and despite his best efforts, John had found the minute cracks, or had perhaps created them, in Sherlock’s previously impenetrable armor.  He had opened him up to humanity in a way no one else, not even family, had done.  It was humanity that burdened his heart now.  Had John moved on without him?  The world would greet him, welcome him; he was Sherlock Holmes after all.  But was there even the smallest possibility that John would accept him back in his life?  Would John welcome him?  Despite the bravado he put forth with his brother, Sherlock, deep inside, was not sure.

He hated not being certain of something so important.

*

A car again, a cab this time.  The streets were familiar at least, London again, the lights shimmering in the darkness, blinking, bidding him welcome.  His intention had been to go straight to Baker Street, but there was business with Mycroft first.  There was always business.  But business had taken him away, and it was business that he had to close if he was to make peace with John.  There had to be peace.  John, steadfast John, would forgive him.  The more Sherlock said it to himself.  The more he believed it.

Memory again, a hand raised to him, his own outstretched.  Leaving a note.  That’s what people did.  He had not thought the doing of it would hurt so much, however.  It should not have.  It was duty, business, a necessity.  Protect Mrs. Hudson, protect Lestrade.  Protect John.  But it had been that moment, more than the one at the graveside, that moment of saying goodbye, that had taught him how much John meant to him, how hard goodbyes could be.  Had taught him how much he meant to John.  It had killed him inside, more surely than outside, and he had spent two years in death.  Too long.

He lifted his head from his memories of tears he had not expected to shed.  A cross-passing cab, no different than his, the same as any other, catching his eyes.  A shadow, a glimpse, a hint.  His heart seized within his chest.  John.  Going to Baker Street, he wondered, tempted to turn his cabbie around, follow that retreating cab.  Follow John home.  But he didn’t.  He would see Mycroft, close that part of the darkest chapter in his life…and then go back.  John had waited this long.  John would still be there.  John would always be there.

*

He had been home less than thirty minutes when his phone rang.  His phone rarely rang any more, it seemed, and when it did, the caller was never the one man he hoped it would be.  A voice long missed, giving him the miracle he had begged for with trembling voice at the foot of Sherlock’s grave.  That   had been so long ago, yet seemed like only yesterday, but during all of that time, John had learned one thing.  Miracles did not exist.

“John.”

He blinked at the voice on the other end of the phone.  Mycroft Holmes had not called him in over two years.  He glanced at his watch, checking the time, the date.  No, this was no anniversary he could have forgotten.  No birthday, no holiday, not the day of meeting or the day of parting.

“Are you there, John?”

“Yes.  Yes…”

“I am sending a car for you, John…”

He blinked again.  “Why?”  Mycroft never called to warn him.  If he wanted to see John, for any reason, the car came and John was expected to drop everything and follow.  But this time he had called.  This time, there was warning.

“It has been too…we must talk.”

“I have nothing to say to you…”

“You will listen.  That is all I ask, John.  Five minutes.   This is important.”

John sighed and glanced out the window.  The black car was already there, parked before the flat, waiting.  Five minutes?  The car and driver were already expecting him to come, Mycroft expecting it.  He may have called, but it was, oddly, reassuring to discover that the elder Holmes, at least, had changed little during the absence of his brother.  Why should he have changed?  John’s world might have dissolved, but that was no reason for the world to stop for anyone else.

“I’m coming.”

At the other end of the call, Mycroft stared from the dead phone in his hand to the falling snow outside.  He was not certain this was the best idea…but for all their sakes, he hoped his perceptions were accurate just this once.  If they were, he would never ask for anything again.

*

He had not expected a warehouse, but he should have.  Mycroft had a penchant for such places.  Dark, cold, and wet.  Maybe that said something about the man, although in truth, everything, to John, seemed dark, cold and wet now.  He had accepted the death  now, admitted it, voiced it, but letting go of it meant letting go of Sherlock, and that was proving more difficult to do.

The closing of the car door behind him echoed throughout the spacious abandoned building.  The driver gave him directions, up the stairs, down the right corridor, through the first door to his left.  He turned the corner, the room wide and empty, expecting to find Mycroft within.

He stopped mid turn.  He stared.  A ghost.  A dream.  A shade from the past who should not have been there.  Could not have been there.

Sherlock.

Sherlock forced his hands to be still at his side.  John’s face was like a mask, one that fell away to reveal another, and then another, as emotions struggled from primacy within him.  He had expected surprise upon his return, but he had not expected the scarring pain that came after it.

“You were dead.”

He wanted to speak, but what could he say?  The speeches, the quips, the smart comebacks he had built in his mind during the last few days and weeks and hours fell away, inadequate now when faced with not only pain, but anger.  Anger?  He had returned for John, the asked for miracle at last…why was John angry?  His chin quivered beneath his pout.  John looked away.  Then Sherlock felt it too.  The depth of John’s missing him, the depth of John’s loneliness, the depth of pain that Sherlock could never have truly understood being the cause of.  He had known his actions would hurt John, but he could not have anticipated how much.  Now, watching the doctor’s shoulders tense, watching the impulse to lash out blossom then be plucked away unbloomed, he knew.  And he regretted his choices deeply.

“You had no right,” John finally hissed.  “No right.”

When he turned to walk away, a reaction to his return that Sherlock had not anticipated from the man, his name sprang with desperation from Sherlock’s lips.  It echoed and died away somewhere in the decaying corridors around them.  John turned, catching a glimpse of the man’s hand reaching for him, outstretched as it had been when they had last seen one another, as he turned around with an exasperated, “What?”

He stalked several steps towards the taller man, buried pain and rage crashing to the surface, ripping open the fault lines within him to spill out as they never had before.  “All of this time, Sherlock…and not one word.  Just one.  I saw you die.  I don’t care how.  I want to know why.”

“Does it matter why?  It’s done.  I’m here now.  There is so much we can do…come back with me, John…”

He held his breath.

There was no thinking about it, no hesitation.  John shook his head.  The answer that fell from his lips was a spike driven home, a single word.

“No.”

Sherlock’s mouth tightened.  The corners of his eyes twitched.  A sliver of anger at rejection, but mostly there was devastating pain.  How could he have misjudged John’s reaction to his home coming so thoroughly?  Instead of making John happy with his return, it appeared, from every nuance in John’s voice, on his face, in his stance, Sherlock had wounded him even more deeply.

He opened his mouth to say something, but John had looked away from him again, hands clenched behind his back, and Sherlock, confused and deflated, stalked from the vast empty room with his hands thrust into the pockets of his overcoat

John waited, listening to the hasty footfalls of retreat, familiar in their weight and cadence, and did not move until they no longer echoed against the walls around him.  Sherlock had some audacity…coming back like this…expecting him to drop everything as if he had never been away, had never faked his death, had never crushed John’s soul.  There was no way in hell John was going back, opening himself up, exposing himself to more pain and the possibility that Sherlock would leave him all over again.  Once was more than enough.

*

From the window overlooking the morgue, Molly watched Sherlock beat the life out of some hapless corpse.  She could tell by the set of his shoulders, the jerkiness of his strokes, the twisted expression on his face when she could glimpse it, that this was no experiment.  This was an outpouring of frustration in the only way Sherlock had been able to think of to release it.  She had known he lived, of course.  And she had known he would return, though she had not known when.  This was the first time she had seen him in two years, looking much the same as when he had when she had seen him last.  There had been emotion then, fear for John and others, and she knew from so much experience that this frustrated pain now was also due to that same man.  That he had expected a warm, immediate welcome home by someone he had grievously wounded did not surprise her, and since there was nothing she could do, she watched in silent pain of her own.

Over and over, between falling blows of the crop, John’s head shook no, the word an echo in Sherlock’s ears, at first fueling the cracking leather shocks and finally sapping Sherlock’s strength out of them.  He often prided himself on the understanding of human nature, but the truth was there was just as much about it that he did not understand.  People…John…continued to surprise him.  He was less angry with John now then he was with himself for failing to understand John’s affection for him until it was too late.  If it was too late now, he had no one to blame but himself.  He could not blame John for self-preservation.  If their places were reversed, he would likely respond precisely the same.

Or would he.

*

The Personal Blog of Dr. John H. Watson.

John stared at the blank screen, fists beneath his chin, trying to put his thoughts in order so that he could blog about this newest development in his life.  Aside from wondering if he even should, if the world was ready to know that Sherlock Holmes was alive and in London, how could he express his feelings about it when he did not know how he felt about it himself.  Surprised, definitely.  Angry…well how could he not be when he had spent two years in, apparently, unnecessary grieving.  Hurt that Sherlock had dared to put him through that without considering his feelings, without caring enough to tell him why, hurt that he had come back without warning to wound John all over again.

He stood to pace, but got only as far as his usual cushioned chair before dropping down with his hand to his head again.  How long before Sherlock returned to Baker Street?  John was surprised he wasn’t  already here, following, demanding to pick up where they had left off  But John did not want to pick up where they had left off.  That was no longer good enough.

Decision made, it was a matter of mere minutes before he was out of the flat with his bags, closing the door of 221B Baker Street behind him with finality.  He would not be here when Sherlock came looking.  He would not see him ever again if he could help it.  A new flat, a room alone, was better than the risk he stood if he remained in Baker Street a minute longer.

*

Fingers steepled beneath his chin, Sherlock stared into the fire, mind racing, trying to fill in the blanks with details he had missed, trying to sort out a plan that would bring resolution to his life, resolution with John.  He had come here after the warehouse because there had been nowhere else to go, and although he did not expect Mycroft to have answers, he often worked through puzzles better with someone to talk to.  This time, his brother was the only person he felt he could trust to hear him.

Mycroft had convinced him not to go to Baker Street upon his return home, to meet John somewhere neutral, somewhere that held no meaning to either of them.  Somewhere least painful to John.  That John would be hurt and angry was something Mycroft knew to expect, as his people had kept tabs on John over the last long months.  He had tried to prepare his brother for that, but it did not surprise him that Sherlock had not heeded those warning.  What did surprise him was the idea of John’s flat out rejection.  He had not seen that coming and now could only watch helplessly as his brother struggled with this new emotion of abandonment.

“I should tell him the truth…”

“You know you can’t do that, Sherlock.”

The younger Holmes’ eyes flashed angrily as his hands lowered into his lap.  He stared for several seconds, Mycroft watching, expecting a retort, a rebuttal, an argument.  None came, and Sherlock dropped his head to rub his temples between his hands.

I could tell him…

‘No.’

He would understand if…

‘No.’

Doesn’t he know that I need…

‘No.’

Johns shaking head, the expression of determined hurt accompanying his wounded ‘No,’ came back over and over in response to every thought, every direction Sherlock tried to follow.  He could feel Mycroft’s eyes searing his skin with pity and regret, adding to his inner turmoil.  He did not want pity.  He did not want to be an abandoned freak.  He wanted answers.  He wanted John.

“I never intended…I never dreamt…” started Mycroft, hoping to deflect some of Sherlock’s darkness away from his brother and onto himself.

“There is nothing wrong with me, do you understand?” Sherlock shouted.

Mycroft’s mouth snapped shut and he stared at his brother sympathetically.

An image, a memory, escaping handcuffed, hand in hand running with John, pushed into his mind, a response, perhaps, to his feeling the need to flee from his brother.  The sensation of John’s hand in his made his hand tingle and he closed his eyes, remembering, savoring.  Then there was only John’s nose, John’s mouth, John’s breath misting in the cold air, close and intimate.

Sherlock’s heart hammered.  His eyes snapped open.  There was nothing wrong with him, only in his denying the truth he had been staring at all along.  It was not for the work that he needed John back, not for the work alone.  He needed John back because he loved him…and he should have told John that long ago.

He left Mycroft seated there without a word, almost running into the night, seeking a cab.  He would go to Baker Street.  He would make this right with John.  And if John wasn’t there, he would find some other way.

*

“What do you want from me, Mycroft?” John asked with a sigh.  There had been no sleep for him last night as he had tossed about, struggling with moments he would rather not recall.  The look on Sherlock’s face when they laid eyes on one another again, sad, apologetic, filled with things that should have been longing and relief though John refused to accept them as such.  Sherlock felt no such emotions.  Not for him.  Not ever.  The pleading desperation as he fumbled about to convince John to forgive him without asking for it.  The crushed disappointment that suggested a breaking heart when John refused him with a single word.  None of those emotions should have been there, should have been real.  But John had seen him feign emotion before when on the case, and once or twice he had even seen the real thing.  Fear.  Regret.  Apology.  Though he did not know Sherlock as well as he would like, a privilege he doubted even Mycroft shared, John knew him enough to know the fake emotion from the real.  What he had seen had been real.

But John was not ready to forgive and forget.

“Talk to Sherlock.  He needs you.”

Mycroft’s words might not have been explicit, but John new precisely what he meant.  He licked his lips, swallowed back the abrupt inhalation of air, and muttered, “I’m just not interested.”

The lowering of his eyes, however, gave away the truest part of his heart.  Mycroft saw it.  John knew that as he met the man’s gaze but he did not acknowledge it, only licked his lip nervously.

“I worry about him.  Constantly.”

John had heard those words before.  He had not believed them before, had not believed them as he had watched Sherlock’s life and reputation crumble around him, but now…this time was different.  This time he felt the concern in Mycroft’s voice and he wondered with trepidation if his rejection had hurt Sherlock too much.  Perhaps the man would never forgive him.  Was that really what John wanted?

In his pocket, his cell phone buzzed, a familiar feel though one he had not experienced in too long.  He lifted it out but did not need to look to see who it was.  No one ever texted him.  No one except Sherlock.

Baker Street.  Come at once if convenient.  SH

John stared at the screen with a haunting sense of déjà vu.  Was it convenient?

Mycroft was staring at him.

Was this what he wanted?  The start of adventure, of life, and an end to being alone?  Forgiveness?  Sherlock Holmes?

“I…should go…”  Whether he followed the text, followed his heart, he could not bear to stand here under the elder Holmes’ gaze any longer.

“Where?”

“I have an appointment.”  He fumbled through the words as giddiness filled him, and he hoped none of it was visible to Mycroft.

“You will consider what I have said.”

“I’ll consider it…but I make no promises.”  It was the best John could give, both to Mycroft and to himself.

“Think of Sherlock.”

Thinking of Sherlock was all John felt capable of doing.

*

Sherlock leaned against the wall in the entrance hall, adjusting the buttons of his jacket, hoping he appeared presentable, acceptable.  He had no idea if that text, those same words that had once lured John to him, would work again.  This time they were not sent with the promise of adventure, but rather the promise of something more personal, more intimate, but just as important between them.  He let out a long slow breath, lower lip pushed out enough that the burst of air ruffled the hair upon his forehead, and he lifted his head enough that it bumped the wall behind him.  He did not expect a text in reply.  He was trying to keep himself from expecting anything.  But he clung to hope and listened to each car that neared and then passed his front door.

Finally one stopped, the door of it opening before the vehicle had reached a standstill and closing almost as abruptly over the sound of the idling motor.  Sherlock held his breath, catching each familiar hurried step across pavement, the familiar click and tumble of the handle turning, the sound of the door opening against the backbeat of his thundering hear

Through the open door, John stared at him, forgiveness and regret intermingled in the sadness of his eyes.  But there was more.  Longing and hope.

Those were emotions Sherlock shared.  Pleased to see him here, he hesitantly offered a joyful, welcoming smile.

To his relief, John closed the door and smiled in return.

Sherlock was home.


End file.
